It is natural for parents to protect their children from any harm, including the endless array of germs they are exposed to every day.

As children grow up, they are continuously exposed to various germs, especially in places such as daycare centres and preschool. Children with low immunity are highly susceptible to various types of infections. The high incidence of infections has led to an increased and inappropriate use of antibiotics, which has further resulted in antimicrobial resistance.

Antimicrobial resistance, a widespread problem, takes places when microbes build resistance against the medications intended to kill them due to overuse. It is one ofthe world's most pressing public health problems. The best way to tackle this is to build a strong immunity, which naturally protects your child from infections. Dr. Rajesh Kumawat, Head - Medical Services & Clinical Development, The Himalaya Drug Company, shares a few tips that can help boost your child's immunity.

* Healthy Diet

A healthy diet that comprises all fundamental components like proteins, minerals, vitamins, micronutrients and unsaturated fats in optimum quantity, helps build the immunity required to fight against various infections or diseases in children. Citrus fruits, carrots, green leafy vegetables, beans, strawberry, yogurt, garlic, and ginger help build immunity with their immunity-boosting properties.

* Adequate Sleep

Sleep deprivation suppresses the functionality of the immune system, which makes children susceptible to infections. Adequate sleep is an absolute necessity to rejuvenate the body. Newborns need up to 18 hours of sleep a day, toddlers require 12 to 13 hours, and preschoolers need about 10 hours of sleep.

* Hygiene

Maintaining hand hygiene before and after each meal, after playtime, handling pets, blowing the nose, using the restroom and arriving home from daycare helps prevent infections in children.

A combination of herbs may be a safe and effective adjuvant to antimicrobials in the management of recurrent infections. When co-prescribed with antibiotics, herbs mayhave a role in faster recovery, reduces the duration and cost of therapy, besides preventing reinfections.

By tweaking the recipe for coaxing human stem cells into insulin-secreting beta cells, researchers have found that the resulting cells are more responsive to fluctuating glucose levels in the blood.

The researchers, from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, said that when they transplanted the beta cells into mice that could not make insulin, the new cells began secreting insulin within a few days, and they continued to control blood sugar in the animals for months.

"We've been able to overcome a major weakness in the way these cells previously had been developed. The new insulin-producing cells react more quickly and appropriately when they encounter glucose," said lead author Jeffrey R. Millman, PhD, Assistant Professor.

"The cells behave much more like beta cells in people who don't have diabetes," he said.

For the study, published in the journal Stem Cell Reports, the team grew beta cells from human stem cells, but they made numerous changes to the "recipe" for producing insulin-producing beta cells, treating the cells with different factors at different times as they grew and developed to help the cells mature and function more effectively.

After that process was complete, the researchers transplanted the beta cells into diabetic mice with suppressed immune systems so that they wouldn't reject the human cells.

Those transplanted cells produced insulin at levels that effectively controlled blood sugar in the mice, functionally curing their diabetes for several months, which, for most of the mice in the study, was about the length of their lives.

The researcher said he can't predict exactly when such cells may be ready for human trials but believes there are at least two ways that stem cell-derived beta cells could be tested in human patients.

"The first would be to encapsulate the cells in something like a gel -- with pores small enough to prevent immune cells from getting in but large enough to allow insulin to get out," he said.

"Another idea would be to use gene-editing tools to alter the genes of beta cells in ways that would allow them to 'hide' from the immune system after implantation."

Researchers have identified a protein, known as ORP2, responsible for transporting cholesterol inside cells that opens the way for new drugs to increase the body's 'good cholesterol' levels.

ORP2 can increase the amount of cholesterol in cells, a process called cholesterol efflux. We think this pathway will be very important for the development of a drug to increase this good cholesterol, said Rob Yang, Professor from the University of New South Wales in Australia.

Until now, drugs including statins have targeted bad cholesterol (LDL) by inhibiting its synthesis in the liver in an effort to mitigate the risk of heart disease and stroke.

However, while statins are effective at lowering LDL levels, they do little to increase the levels of good cholesterol (HDL) and there is no other drug in use that can significantly boost the human body's HDL levels.

Up to 90 per cent of a cell's cholesterol is found at the cell's plasma membrane, said the study published in the journal Molecular Cell.

"Knowing the molecules that deliver cholesterol to the plasma membrane itself is a huge step forward. The transport of cholesterol to the plasma membrane is the key to the generation of HDL.

If such a drug could be developed, it would not replace statins, but would be used complementarily, with one drug used to reduce the bad cholesterol and the other to increase levels of the good, Yang suggested.

Importantly, ORP2 could also be targeted to fight cancer.

The rampant and uncontrolled growth of cells that characterises cancer could be stopped in its tracks by reducing the amount of cholesterol produced.

ORP2 could offer a new strategic line of research and possibly succeed where the use of statins in this area hasn't, Yang noted.

Researchers, led by one of Indian-origin, have developed a new technology that can clean water twice as fast as commercially available ultrafiltration membranes, an advance that brings hope for countries like India where clean drinking water is a big issue.

According to a team from the Washington University in St. Louis, more than one in 10 people in the world lack basic drinking water access, and by 2025, half of the world's population will be living in water-stressed areas.

The team led by Srikanth Singamaneni, Professor at the varsity, developed an ultrafiltration membrane using graphene oxide and bacterial nanocellulose that they found to be highly efficient, long-lasting and environment-friendly.

The membrane technology purifies water while preventing biofouling, or build up of bacteria and other harmful micro-organisms that reduce the flow of water.

For the study, published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, they used bacteria to build such filtering membranes.

The Gluconacetobacter hansenii bacteria is a sugary substance that forms cellulose nanofibres when in water.

The team then incorporated graphene oxide (GO) flakes into the bacterial nanocellulose while it was growing, essentially trapping GO in the membrane to make it stable and durable.

They exposed the membrane to E. coli bacteria, then shone light on the membrane's surface.

After being irradiated with light for just three minutes, the E. coli bacteria died. The team determined that the membrane quickly heated to above the 70 degrees Celsius required to deteriorate the cell walls of E. coli bacteria.

While the bacteria are killed, the researchers had a pristine membrane with a high quality of nanocellulose fibres that was able to filter water twice as fast as commercially available ultrafiltration membranes under a high operating pressure.

When they did the same experiment on a membrane made from bacterial nanocellulose without the reduced GO, the E. coli bacteria stayed alive.

While the researchers acknowledge that implementing this process in conventional reverse osmosis systems is taxing, they propose a spiral-wound module system, similar to a roll of towels.

It could be equipped with LEDs or a type of nanogenerator that harnesses mechanical energy from the fluid flow to produce light and heat, which would reduce the overall cost.

If the technique were to be scaled up to a large size, it could benefit many developing countries where clean water is scarce, the researchers noted.

For people who find it difficult to take out extra time for physical activity after a hectic schedule, exercise just got simpler and harder to avoid. Researchers have shown that a few minutes of stair climbing called the 'stair snacking' approach, at short intervals between work, can improve cardiovascular health.

The study showed that virtually anyone can improve their fitness, anywhere and any time throughout the day.

"The findings make it even easier for people to incorporate 'exercise snacks' into their day," says Martin Gibala, professor at McMaster University in Canada.

"Those who work in office towers or live in apartment buildings can vigorously climb a few flights of stairs in the morning, at lunch, and in the evening and know they are getting an effective workout."

The latest study has challenged previous studies which had shown that brief bouts of vigorous exercise or sprint interval training (SIT) are effective when performed as a single session, requiring a total time commitment of 10 minutes or so.

For this study, researchers set out to determine if SIT exercise snacks, or vigorous bouts of stairclimbing performed as single sprints spread throughout the day, would be sufficient enough to improve cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF).

For the study, one group of sedentary young adults vigorously climbed a three-flight stairwell, three times per day. They repeated the protocol three times each week over the course of six weeks.

The researchers compared the change in their fitness to a control group which did not exercise.

The findings, published in the journal Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism, showed that although sprint interval training works but the stair snacking approach was also effective.

"Vigorously climbing a few flights of stairs on your coffee or bathroom break during the day seems to be enough to boost fitness in people who are otherwise sedentary," said Jonathan Little, assistant professor at University of British Columbia in Canada.

In addition to being more fit, the stair climbers were also stronger compared to their sedentary counterparts and generated more power during a maximal cycling test.

In future, researchers hope to investigate different exercise snacking protocols with varying recovery times and the effect on other health-related indicators such as blood pressure and glycemic control, the team noted.

Scientists have developed tiny elastic robots that can change shape depending on their surroundings and can swim through fluids, an advance which may help deliver drugs to diseased tissue one day.

The smart, biocompatible microrobots that are highly flexible are made of hydrogel nanocomposites that contain magnetic nanoparticles allowing them to be controlled via an electromagnetic field.

As a result, these devices are able to swim through fluids and modify their shape when needed. They can also pass through narrow blood vessels and intricate systems without compromising on speed or manoeuvrability, said the group of scientists led by Selman Sakar at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and Bradley Nelson at ETH Zurich.

The study, published in the journal Science Advances, described the soft, bio-compatible device "like a living microorganism", wriggling in fluids that may be dense, viscous or moving at rapid speeds.

In addition to offering enhanced effectiveness, these miniaturized soft robots can also be manufactured easily at a reasonable cost.

For now, the research team is working on improving the performance for swimming through complex fluids like those found in the human body.

According to the scientists, the flexible tiny robot could be made smaller using an origami-based folding method.

The deformations can be "programmed" in advance without sensors or actuators, allowing the robot to automatically morph into the most efficient shape, according to the study.

The robots can be either controlled using an electromagnetic field or left to navigate on their own through cavities by utilising fluid flow. Either way, they will automatically morph into the most efficient shape, the researchers explained.

Researchers have now developed a new antibiotic that is heralded as a breakthrough against a lethal drug-resistant hospital superbug.

Antibiotic Ramizol was found safe and effective in addressing the Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) infection which is becoming resistant to traditional antibiotics caused by drug-resistant bacteria.

C.difficile is considered one of the most common infections acquired during hospital visits and the most likely cause of diarrhoea for patients and staff in hospitals.

It causes a deadly infection in the large intestine and is most common in people who need to take antibiotics for a long period of time.

"Cases of C.difficile disease are rising and the strains are becoming more lethal. If there is an imbalance in your intestines it can begin to grow and release toxins that attack the lining of the intestines which leads to symptoms," said Ramiz Boulos, adjunct research associate at Flinders University in Australia.

For the study, the team gave 48 rats a high dose of a new class of antibiotic for 14 days to assess its safety.

The findings, published in the journal Scientific Reports, showed that when doses of the new antibiotic were given to rats infected with the bacteria, a significant proportion of them survived the infection.

"Our research indicates Ramizol is an extremely well-tolerated antibiotic in rats, with good microbiology and antioxidant properties. It also has high chemical stability and is scalable because of the low cost of manufacturing, which could make it a viable treatment option," Boulos said.

In addition, a very high dose on rats showed no mortalities or side effects.There were also no changes in mean body weight, weight gain, food consumption or food efficiency for male and female rats attributable to Ramizol.

"We believe Ramizol has the potential to be the standard of care for treating C.difficile infection and has the potential to be a blockbuster drug," Boulos noted.

Men and women who are distressed in midlife could be at higher risk of developing dementia in their old age, suggests a new study.

The study showed that vital exhaustion, which can be perceived as an indicator of psychological distress, is a risk factor for future risk of dementia.

Psychological distress is potentially linked to the risk of dementia through neurological and cardiovascular mechanisms.

The findings, led by researchers from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, revealed that for each additional symptom of vital exhaustion, the risk of dementia rose by two per cent.

While participants reporting five to nine symptoms had a 25 per cent higher risk of dementia than those with no symptoms, those reporting 10 to 17 symptoms had a 40 per cent higher risk of dementia compared with not having symptoms.

Importantly, physiological stress response, including cardiovascular changes and excessive production of cortisol over a prolonged period, may also contribute to linking psychological distress with an increased risk of dementia, revealed the study published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.

"Stress can have severe and harmful consequences not just for our brain health, but our health in general. Cardiovascular risk factors are well-known modifiable risk factors for dementia, and in some countries, a stagnation or even a decreasing incidence of dementia has been observed," said Sabrina Islamoska, postdoctoral student from the varsity.

For the study, the team included 6,807 Danish participants aged 60 years on average.

Psychological distress is an important risk factor that should receive more focus when considering prevention initiatives in relation to later dementia, the team said.

Frailty can make older adults more susceptible to Alzheimer's dementia, finds a study that suggest that frailty should be considered in clinical care and management of the age-related disease.

The study, published in the journal Lancet, showed that older adults with higher levels of frailty were more likely to have both Alzheimer's disease-related brain changes and symptoms of dementia.

On the other hand, elderly with substantial brain changes, but who were not frail, showed fewer clinical symptoms.

"By reducing an individual's physiological reserve, frailty could trigger the clinical expression of dementia when it might remain asymptomatic in someone who is not frail," said lead author Kenneth Rockwood Professor at the Dalhousie University in Canada.

"This indicates that a 'frail brain' might be more susceptible to neurological problems like dementia as it is less able to cope with the pathological burden," Rockwood added.

The findings support the idea that late-life dementia (and particularly Alzheimer's) is a complex phenomenon rather than a single disease entity marked by genetic risk or single protein abnormalities in the brain.

"Understanding how individual risk factors work together to give rise to late-life dementia is likely to offer a new way to develop targeted treatment options," Rockwood said.

In this study, the team used modelling to assess relationships between frailty, Alzheimer's-related brain changes, and Alzheimer's dementia among 456 participants.

The analysis revealed that frailty and Alzheimer's disease-related brain changes independently contribute to dementia status, after adjusting for age, sex, and education.

Further, while frailty is likely to reduce the threshold for Alzheimer's disease-related brain changes to cause cognitive decline, it probably also contributes to other mechanisms in the body that give rise to dementia, weakening the direct link between Alzheimer's disease-related brain changes and dementia.

Sleeping more than nine hours per night during pregnancy may be associated with late stillbirth, suggests a new study.

This is because blood pressure reaches its lowest point during sleep which has been linked with foetal growth problems, preterm birth, and stillbirth.

The study, led by a team from the University of Michigan, explored how maternal sleep habits, including lengthy periods of sleep without waking more than once in the night, may be associated with foetal health independent of other risk factors.

Moreover, pregnant women often report waking up and getting up in the middle of the night.

Very disruptive sleep has also been associated with poor pregnancy outcomes, including growth restriction and preterm growth.

"Our findings add to research indicating that maternal sleep plays a role in foetal well being. Studies aiming to reduce stillbirths should consider maternal sleep as this is a potentially modifiable risk factor," said lead author Louise O'Brien, researcher at the varsity.

"Understanding the role of maternal sleep may help us identify interventions that would put us in a better position to advise women," O'Brien added.

For the study, reported in the journal Birth, the team involved 153 women who had experienced a late stillbirth (on or after 28 weeks of pregnancy) within the previous month and 480 women with an ongoing third-trimester pregnancy or who had recently delivered a live born baby during the same period.

Progress in reducing stillbirth deaths has been slow but stillbirth is an urgent global health issue that should be at the centre of more research programmes, the researchers noted.